The Boy Who Cried Wolf: A Tale of Sincerity

Abstract

Each pair of pages presents one full page of text and one of colored illustration. This version of BW is particularly well told. The boy had never seen a wolf; he even wondered if they existed at all. He had tried to play with the sheep to vary his days: no luck! The boy hid when he first fooled the people. He emerged from behind a tree to tell them how funny they looked running up the hill to help. Maybe the best image is that of the townsfolk wondering what was up as they reached the top of the hill and found neither wolf nor shepherd. On the climactic day, the wolf ran off into the forest with all the sheep. The story ends, poignantly, with the boy sitting where he had sat when surrounded by his sheep. The shepherd boy didn't think his joke was so funny anymore.